I just don't see it. He'll be 39, has made 1 start in 2 years, and coming off of TJS at an age we've never seen before. $42M + a draft pick is a lot to invest in somebody with any 1 of those characteristics, let alone all three. I haven't found a starter that came back year one after TJS and had anything close to a Cy Young caliber season. Then again, you just never know for sure in Free Agency.
in fairness, it is very difficult to maintain perspective. We have seen star studded lineups and pitching staffs in this town over the last five years. It is easy to take these teams for granted, just as it is easy to fall into the trap of wanting every team to look like the best of this 5 year run. Like, hey why can’t we have a team comprised of: 2017 Springer Peak Brantley 2017 MVP Altuve 2018 Rookie of the Year Yordan 2019 MVP Candidate Bregman 2021 MVP Candidate Correa 2021 Tucker 2021 Yuli 2017 McCann/2021 Machete 2017 Verlander 2019 Cole 2017 Morton 2021 healthy Mccullers World Series Urquidi 2021 Pressly 2019 Will Harris sans Hendricks home run. 2021postseason Maton 2021 Graveman Hell we wouldn’t even need a bullpen honestly.
We did have Carlos Correa... Of course we had George Springer and we had Justin Verlander and we had Dallas Keuchel and yet we survived just fine without all 3 of them, and if LMJ & Bregman don't get hurt this year we might still have been WS champs.
I’d be surprised, but that’s just a guess. I would think if he has a good year he could get significantly better than that particularly without draft compensation involved. If I’m Verlander and my goal is maximizing income, then I don’t know that two years at 21M is better than 1 at 18.5M and then signing a longer contract at 25-30M the next year.
There’s been like 20 dudes in history who have been as good in their late 30s as Verlander has been. He is so obviously not following a normal aging curve that it just doesn’t make sense to judge him against what is typical. Of course his age adds to the risk, but that’s why we are discussing a 2-3 year deal instead of a 5-6 (or 9-10) year deal. I agree the draft pick cost very likely limits his upside to <$30M/yr, but a multi year deal in excess of the QO rate seems likely given he just showed that he has maintained the velocity from his HoF peak.
Even if we lose Correa, we will still have a core of Altuve, Alvarez, Bregman & Tucker; young, promising rotation; and money + a very savvy front office to fill the holes. And they are not in a terribly difficult division. Any talk of the Astros window being closed is, I think, premature.
It's also not a particularly strong free agent class of starting pitchers. Scherzer is probably the best available - and he may have more questions than Verlander. Ray and Stroman *may* be better - but you'll likely have to pay significantly more to find out. Grabbing JV for ~2/$40MM - especially for a richer team - is a no-brainer because if he's healthy, he's worth much more, and if not, you can absorb the cost and it's not long-term. Frankly, I hope the QO isn't the end of the Astros' interest.
I would give Verlander $72M/4yr without blinking if he wanted to maximize his length and retire an Astro.
I'm not saying he could've. But between the staying away story and the fact that he's hitting 97 a week after we lost the World Series just makes you wonder.
Gotcha - yeah, I can see him taking the QO simply if he likes Houston, but I think we always underestimate free agency. All it takes is 1 team - it's not often you get a chance to get a HoF pitcher still pitching at an elite level (and for whatever reason, players come back from TJS really well these days and it just takes one team to be enamoured by him), so I wouldn't be surprised if someone offers 2-3 years, maybe with some buyouts/options or incentives built in somehow.
Crane probably didn't want Verlander pitching in the world series, so no sense in worrying too much about it
It's sort of an interesting dynamic. The Astros did survive losing those guys, but they won 107 games in 2019, were a 0.500 team in 2020 and won 95 this year. Correa had a WAR of 7ish, so if he was replaced this last year with replacement level player, the Astros win 88 games and are not in the playoffs. Obviously you hope they don't replace with replacement level and they have other money to spend, but in a larger picture sense, their margin for error is shrinking by losing elite talents in Cole, Springer and Verlander. They are surviving, but I wouldn't say "just fine" - they are slowly getting worse. They just were so ridiculously good in 2017/2018 that they could afford to lose some talent and still be great. But I think they are losing that margin for error.
Worth noting that Houston had a $30M/yr pitcher out for the year in both 2020 and 2021, so those teams were likely nearly as talented as 2017-2019 had JV stayed healthy (or if Houston had another $30M/yr to spend). Very easy to argue that Houston wins 100 games this season (and likely beats Atlanta in the Series) with a healthy Verlander. Also, this offseason will be the first since 2018 that they’ve had significant financial resources available to use in free agency; that was worsened in the last 2 offseasons because they also didn’t have many good prospects to trade. Their farm took a big step forward this year. So all that is to say that Houston’s 2022 outlook is much brighter than 2020 and 2021.
Certainly all true - but injuries are part of the game too. Part of having a 38 year old pitcher is injury risk - Astros could never have signed him to the deal they did if he was 28 and had less risk attached to him. The 2017-2019 teams had tons of injuries too, so if we take that into account, those teams would have been even better. But they had the extra margin to deal with those injuries and still be amazing. The Braves lost potentially the league MVP mid-season, and then lost their #1 pitcher in game 1 of the World Series. Dodgers pitching and hitting were wrecked with injuries by the NLCS. Who knows what Boston does with a healthy Chris Sale? On and on.
This will also be the first draft in three years in which they've had their top 2 picks, which also severely hampered their ability to maneuver at the deadline, especially this year, in which landing an extra bat or arm may have made the difference in the WS.
There is a 29 year old flamethrower with a great track record who also had TJS, and has thrown 96 since coming back, but in an actual game setting (Syndergaard). Granted everyone seems to think he'll take the QO, and why not? If he can prove he's healthy he'll still be young enough to command a monster contract. And there is also Kevin Gausman, plus the top candidate to be this year's version of Kevin Gausman in Jon Gray. There's also another future hall of famer in Clayton Kershaw out there, who's still been dominant when healthy. Then there is another potential HOFer in Greinke, granted he is unlikely to bounce back to ace status, but you never know, Mike Mussina did. The extreme high risk/high reward of Corey Kluber. Carlos Rodon very well could be the best pitcher in baseball next season. Everybody has some question marks, but I like the depth of starting pitching.
Right. I'm not sure I'd put any of those above a healthy Verlander *if I'm a good and financially stable* organization. You can likely get two years of Verlander for damn-near the likely cost of one year of, say, Rodon. (I would love the Astros to be all over Syndergaard, BTW. He's a guy you might get at or slightly below market value (maybe?) who, if healthy, would be a TOR ace.)
Without Correa, best player in either league, nope. Not. Gonna. Happen. The gaping hole is too big. Headed in the wrong direction. Stop. Don't do it. Turn back. All the warning signs are there.
